Signature Event: Elevate to Educate

What is Elevate to Educate?

Elevate to Educate is a community initiative that improves the learning environment for elementary students in Hampton Roads. We believe that by elevating schools in need, we can create a lasting impact for students, staff, and surrounding communities.

Each year, one elementary school in South Hampton Roads will be adopted as our Elevate to Educate school of the year. This involves two years of programming, beginning with a complete school makeover. Throughout the first year, members of the Elevate to Educate team will work closely with school leadership to craft a makeover plan unique to the adopted school. This plan will be brought to life over the span of a school year. Members of JLNVB along with the help of volunteers from the Hampton Roads community, will elevate the school through landscaping, painting interactive and educational murals throughout school common spaces, and revitalizing the school playgrounds.

Following the school makeover, JLNVB will engage with school administration and staff to develop meaningful programming, and host special events focused on promoting JLNVB’s signature issues of childhood literacy and women’s health. These programs will be customized to the school’s needs and interests. Programs may include but are not limited to: hosting read alouds with local children’s authors, providing new books to the library and students, creating interactive bulletin board displays, supplying a period pantry with first period packs for young female students and hosting an International Day of the Girl celebration.

2023 Makeover: Ingleside Elementary School

Phase I – March 25th & 26th

Under the leadership of our Community Events Committee, volunteers:

Power washed buildings
Painted games on sidewalks
Painted rails, doors, and murals to brighten up the school
Painted murals to brighten up the school
Fully made over the teachers’ lounge

Past Makeover: Jacox Elementary School

In order to make a large scale impact on childhood literacy, in August 2018, the Junior League of Norfolk-Virginia Beach, Inc. (JLNVB) with the support of tHRive Young Professionals and the Urban Renewal Center, hosted a 3-day makeover of Jacox Elementary School in Norfolk, VA. The focus of this makeover was to provide students with a positive space to pursue their education, with a focus on childhood literacy. JLNVB also incorporated its signature issue of women’s health by designing body-positive messages on every student bathroom stall in the school.

Contributed 1,850+ hours of direct service
Painted 35 wall murals covering 1152 sq. ft
Painted 5 asphalt games totaling 2866 sq. ft. of outdoor play space
Rehabbed and painted 10 basketball hoops
Updated 8 bathrooms with a total of 28 stalls, each with a positive message hand-painted on the stall doors
Created a 270 square foot butterfly garden with 100 new plants
Planted 251 other new plants around campus for new landscaping
Collected over 30 bags of litter and pruned 20 trees
Built 9 garden boxes, 4 picnic tables, and 5 outdoor easels

Media Coverage

A Norfolk elementary school gets a makeover thanks to three local groups

Community groups join forces to give Norfolk elementary school a makeover

Photo Gallery

Past Makeover: Little Creek Elementary School

JLNVB with the support of the Hampton Roads community made an impact for more than 700 students at Little Creek Elementary School. In 2.5 days we achieved the following:

2,115 direct service hours completed by 300+ volunteers
Painted and mounting more than 75 murals across three buildings
Updating 8 bathrooms with a total of 30 stalls, each with a positive message hand-painted on the stall doors
Repainting and adding bright pops of color to the school’s breezeway and both of the school’s media centers/libraries
Adding 42 teacher’s mailboxes to the school’s classrooms
Cleaning and painting the school’s playground structure
Building and painting 17 pallet benches to create an outdoor classroom
Painting, and placing 10 posts to serve as safety markers for students playing in the field near Little Creek Road
Creating 6 different asphalt games outside the school gym for students to play on
Painting all the outdoor trash cans on the school grounds; and
Completely rehabilitating all 12 basketball backboards and poles on the school’s basketball court to create a larger-than-life “field of sunflowers”, designed by local art icon, Onie Tonie.